Surface maintenance machines include vehicles and devices that can be self-powered, towed, or pushed, and/or manually powered. Surface maintenance machines commonly include a cleaning head having one or more cleaning tools (e.g., a rotating drum brush) operated by one or more motors. Each cleaning tool is configured to perform a desired treating operation on the floor surface. For example, in cases where the surface maintenance machine is a floor floor surface maintenance machine, one or more brushes sweep dirt and debris from a floor surface and throw loose debris into a hopper. The brush may be housed in a cleaning tool chamber in such cases.
Typically during the operation of a sweeper, sweeping tools that move and direct debris and generate particulate may cause adverse air currents that can be hard to control. In such cases, a vacuum system directing airflow in a predetermined direction can be commonly used to control the particulate and adverse air currents that are generated during the sweeping process. The floor surface maintenance machine may also include skirt assemblies comprising a single row of skirts on the lateral sides and/or rear of the machine, under which vacuum may be generated by the vacuum system thereby drawing particulate toward the hopper. Dusting may still occur at the side skirt assemblies due to one or more reasons such as reduced airflow from the vacuum system, air currents due to the rotating broom, skirt mis-adjustment, or skirt damage.